


The Grey Area

by thearcticfox



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Violence, F/M, slightly adult content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 17:37:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18077936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thearcticfox/pseuds/thearcticfox
Summary: Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, Elliott wondered if he was a bad person.He’d curl closer into Wraith then, feeling her back pressed against him and the gentle rhythm of her breath.It was precious, what they had. She was more dear to him than anyone outside his family had ever been. He’d die for her. He’d kill for her.He had killed for her.





	The Grey Area

**Author's Note:**

> This is different than what I usually do, and I’m not really sure if I like it. Let me know what you think!

Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, Elliott wondered if he was a bad person.

 

He’d curl closer into Wraith then, feeling her back pressed against him and the gentle rhythm of her breath. She trusted him to be with her when she was most vulnerable, to feel the beat of the heart in her chest and listen to the hum of the life in her veins.

 

It was precious, what they had. She was more dear to him than anyone outside his family had ever been. He’d die for her. He’d kill for her.

 

He had killed for her. Elliott’s mind wandered back to King’s Canyon, as it often did in the moonlight. He knew he came off as careless, but he knew all their names. Remembered their faces. Remembered how they died.

 

Lifeline - she couldn’t have been much more than 20. And he’d gunned her down as she crouched with her back turned to him, trying to heal her bleeding teammate.

 

Caustic. A vile old man, obsessed with death and decay, but still a human. Still living, breathing, being. He’d forced a knife through the man’s throat and listened to the blood drain onto his boots.

 

Gibraltar. A hero among his people. His scope was locked onto Wraith when Elliott had shot him through the heart.

 

Wraith knew all this, had seen what he’d done. And she still claimed to love him, still slept in his bed and called his mother her own. He loved her too. But his mind loved to race, ponder all possibilities and contemplate all truths.

 

How could he be a good man, be someone worthy of loving, when his hands had killed?

 

His mother reminded him that it was self defense. If he hadn’t killed them, they would have killed him. Perhaps that was true. It was also true that it was a blood sport he’d eagerly enlisted to play.

 

What kind of man did it make him to relish the sanguine spotlight he gained from the death he’d caused?

 

A sadist at best, he supposed. It wouldn’t be entirely untrue. He couldn’t deny to rush it gave him to drop into the ring, to have his finger on a trigger or wrapped around a grenade.

 

At worse, it made him a murderer. Yes, everyone he killed was revived. It wasn’t a permanent death - just a painful one. But it was death. And he’d done it.

 

His squadmates had good reasons, justifications for what they’d done. Wraith searched for what was stolen from her, and Pathfinder sought what had abandoned him.

 

Elliott did it for the fame and glory. For the money.

 

Could he deny enjoying the expensive townhome he owned, or the one he’d bought his mother? Or their shared lab?

 

Not at all. He loved his money and his celebrity. And damn it all, he loved the thrill of being a predator.

 

He would have been good at war, he mused. It was a shame he was too young to enlist on the Frontier.

 

He would have been dead if he had. Perhaps that would have been for the best.

 

Wraith murmured in her sleep, and Elliott’s mind drew back to her. She’d listen in the morning, if he asked her to. Contemplate all he had to say and give him the truth. That was her way of loving - she would never lie, even if it hurt. Sugarcoat, perhaps, make it easier. But never lie.

 

He ran his fingers through her hair before kissing the back of her head.

 

She was just as dangerous as him, after all.

 

——

 

Elliott sat beside a dewdrop-stained window, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. He watched the steam billow into the air and blow away.

 

Usually when morning came, he was able to forget the things that haunted him at night. Not this time.

 

“Wraith,” he said gently, examining his hands. Unwilling to meet her eyes. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

 

“If I did, I wouldn’t be here.”

She looked over at him from the book she’d been reading.

 

She was too short for her socked feet to touch the ground. She swung them when she was reading something she enjoyed. Elliott wondered if she realized that.

 

“I kill people for a living.”

 

“So do I.”

 

“That’s different.”

 

“How?”

 

“You have a reason.”

 

Wraith slipped a bookmark onto her page before shutting the book and resting her chin in her hand. Her legs stilled.

 

“Motivation doesn’t matter, when you come down to it. Our actions are the same.”

 

“Intentions always matter.”

 

“Where is this coming from?”

 

Elliott sighed, gripping his mug tighter. He was leeching the warmth from it, but he needed his hands to stop shaking.

 

“I had a dream once,” he murmured, “of us in the ring. There was a girl there - Lifeline. One of my old kills. She was singing. And I gutted her.” He closed his eyes, wishing he didn’t see the image so clear in his mind. “I listened to her scream as I ended her.”

 

Wraith was quiet, but her careful eyes watched him, thoughts behind them.

 

“And I liked it,” he choked. “I didn’t feel the guilt until I woke up. All I felt was the rush, the adrenaline, the excitement at the first kill and the game and the eyes on me-“

 

He took a deep breath. His lashes felt wet now, and he wondered when that happened.

 

Wraith’s thumb wiped under his eyes. She leaned close to him, close enough to touch. He wanted to. He didn’t.

 

“It’s only a game, Elliott,” she said quietly. “It’s real, but it’s temporary. You’re not a bad man. You’re one of the best I’ve ever met.”

 

Minutes passed of them in silence. His coffee was cold when he drank it again, but he didn’t mind.

 

“I love you, Elliott,” Wraith said softly. “I know what bad people look like. You are not one. You never have been.”

 

He could tell how awkward this was for her. She wasn’t an overly affectionate person like him. She was reserved with her words and her emotions, saying just enough to get across what she wanted to. To be a comforter was not usually who she was.

 

She was trying for him. He appreciated that. He needed that.

 

He knew she wouldn’t lie.

 

“I believe you,” he said.

 

Sometimes he dreamt she was gone in the morning, another tumble for the night that he’d forget in a month like all the rest. But every morning when he opened his eyes, Wraith was curled against his chest, cold hands tucked under his shirt.

 

Dreams weren’t true. They were the mind playing tricks, creating illusions. Mirages. He could respect that.

 

Elliott also feared it.

 

Cold lips touched against his. He focused back in on reality, and Wraith was leaning into him, lips on his own, clearly trying to bring him back to the ground. He let her, let himself fade into her being and her cold touch and remember he deserved this.

 

With a clumsy hand he swept her book and the old papers off the table, careful to avoid his mug. It left them space and so he pushed her back into the wood. She gasped, hands migrating to his hair as he began to pull at her shirt.

 

He was taking advantage of her kindness, one could say. Using her as a distraction. It would hurt her if she knew his reasons. He knew it would. He almost didn’t care.

 

 

As he undressed her against the table, he tried to ignore how his eyes were still wet, or how much he longed to be back in the ring, something he could fully understand.

 

Morality was complex. Maybe he’d never truly be good or bad. At least he could enjoy himself on the ride.


End file.
